What Could Have Been
by That Oddball Otaku
Summary: (Spoilers for BBL and Shuu's route!) Shuu wonders if killing Muumo was a mistake, and if she would have come back if he didn't. Oneshot; Rated T as a cushion. Human!ShuuxOC


_Author's Notes:_

_Welcome to my second Hatoful fanfiction! Again, it features my clumsier, more disoriented, slightly more cheerful version of Hiyoko, Nosaki Muumo. This is the last time I'll do author's notes telling you that, so don't worry! Mainly I just wanted to say that I'm not showing her as an OC and Hiyoko in the characters anymore, JUST an OC, because in my mind Hiyoko and Muumo are completely different. For instance, Muumo has orange hair in my brain, and Hiyoko has brown, and their personalities are way different to me (I found it really funny when I found out that a lot of the fandom pictured Hiyoko with orange hair, because that's immediatly how I thought of Muumo. So yeah, I got a good laugh out of that). _

_Enough rambling! Lets get on with the story, shall we?_

* * *

_Doctor Iwamine walked up to the door to the infirmiry and opened it quietly._

_He always made it a priority to be stealthy, lest there was someone slinking about inside, trying to read the files he had concerning the Hawk Party. But it was especially prudent to use caution right now, for Shuu had just heard clunky footsteps coming from inside the infirmiry._

_As he entered the moderate-sized room, Doctor Iwamine could hear someone mumbling to themselves from behind the curtain concealing the beds. He turned, locking the door behind him and slipping the key back into his coat pocket. He had just come back to clean up the remainders of an "experiment" of his; if it was a student, they had certainly picked an unfortunate time to drop by…for them. And he was fairly sure this was the case; Sakazaki Yuuya, an undercover Dove Party agent sent to St. Pigeonation's to spy on him, had been much more cautious than this person. Perhaps it was Kawara, in for his usual stomach problems. Or maybe it was…_

"_You're early today, Miss Nosaki."_

_Shuu had pulled back the curtain to find his assistant, Nosaki Muumo, looking dumbfounded and afraid. She whirled around to face him, her already pale complexion a sickly shade of greenish white. Her thick, orange hair was ruffled, as if she had been running her hands through it. Muumo looked up at the Doctor with eyes filled not only with fear, but with sadness, too._

"_You're rather pale," Shuu chuckled, "here, why don't you lie down?"_

"_D-Doctor…this…blood…" Muumo stammered, a tear escaping her left eye, only to be wiped away with her sleeve a second later._

_Shuu saw no reason to hide the truth from her. He was going to have to kill her anyway; she knew too much. It would be easily done; she was so clumsy, he wouldn't have any problems with her trying to escape. And covering up her death wouldn't be an issue either; she didn't have a family, apart from Mister Kawara, who she talked about all the time, saying how he was like a brother to her._

So why does killing her feel different from all the others…?

"_Oh, forgive me. I just finished dismembering another student, and hadn't cleaned up yet. Please, pay it no mind!"_

_Doctor Iwamine laughed darkly after that sentence. Muumo walked past him silently, with no emotion showing on her face, and tried the doorknob. She sucked in a breath when she saw it was locked and stood there, back towards Shuu, her head hanging slightly so her thick hair hung over her eyes._

"_Going home so soon?" Doctor Iwamine asked, letting a smirk creep onto his face._

You can't pick favorites. If she tells, it's all over. And also, I had to kill her eventually, whether she signed up for infirmary duties or not. It's all a piece of a bigger picture. You're not important. _He thought to himself._

"_It won't…open…" Muumo murmured._

"_Indeed it won't. After all, there are so many bad, little boys and girls who try to leave before their examinations are over…like you."_

_Muumo said nothing, and just looked at the Doctor sadly._

_The rumors, his mysterious behavior that she loved so dearly, and Yuuya's disappearance…Muumo had had so many warnings. In the end, she knew she would never win over his affections, and that just being on the infirmiry staff was a risk to her health. But every day, she greeted Doctor Iwamine with a cheerful smile, her dark purple eyes shimmering excitedly. _

_So she didn't need to ask for confirmation that the disturbing rumors about the school's doctor were true; she had known all along, deep in her mind. But love had proved to be the stronger force, and every day, she understood him more and more. This was, inevitably, the outcome. But the last year had been worth it._

"_Doctor, you killed Yuuya, right?"_

"_Indeed I did. He was a bit bothersome, but he succumbed in the end. You even helped me get rid of him."_

_Muumo wasn't sure why, but at the moment she didn't care how she had helped him. Ordinarily, she would've been flinging questions at him equivalent to the amount of wood a Woodchuck would chuck if a Woodchuck could chuck wood. But instead, she selected a single question, one which popped out in her mind above all others. One she already knew the answer too._

"_And now you're going to kill me…right?"_

_Shuu paused; that hadn't been the question he was expecting. The look on Muumo's face was one without much emotion, a serious expression he had never seen from her before. Although, just beneath the surface, he could see her sadness. Still, it surprised him…she was never this blunt. _

"_Yes. Yes, that's right." Doctor Iwamine said, his voice a tad quieter than normal. He reached down into one of his many pockets, one of the larger ones, which contained a small cleaver, and fingered the hilt of the weapon in it silently._

_Muumo said nothing more, but smiled sadly. She always had been cheerful…and she wanted to go out happily. Which is why the younger girl took a few steps forward, toward Doctor Iwamine, and gingerly pressed her lips to his. She had never kissed anyone before, and she thought the Doctor had a right to know how she felt towards him. And in her final moments, Muumo felt happy._

_Then she felt nothing at all._

* * *

Shuu sat at his desk, mulling over his thoughts. He was supposed to be filling out paperwork for the Hawk party, but he just couldn't concentrate. His lavender eyes were narrowed in thought as he stared straight ahead at nothing, a pen gripped firmly in his left hand. Then, slowly, his line of sight drifted down to the right, where the jar preserving Muumo's head sat.

He looked away quickly. He didn't want to remember.

It had taken her death for him to realize the fondness that had grown in him for the student over the year, and it weighed heavily upon him now. He found it harder to think, his thoughts scrambled. Recently, he had accidentally thrown away his favorite scalpel instead of an overused syringe. He had also stopped killing the students. For some reason, he couldn't stomach it anymore.

"Miss Nosaki," Shuu said slowly, "if I had let you live, would you have come back for infirmary duties next year, and the year after?"

No reply.

"Would you have smiled at me as usual, pretending nothing had happened the day you nearly died?"

Silence.

"Would you have continued loving someone you really shouldn't have, for more than one reason?" Shuu chuckled bitterly.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

Shuu closed his eyes with a sigh, setting down the pen. He leaned back in his chair, remembering everything that had happened on Muumo's last day.

And wondering, with a heavy heart, what could have been.

* * *

_As Muumo pulled out of the soft kiss, the two stood there in the infirmiry, stock still. Doctor Iwamine stared at Muumo, and, for the first time, Muumo wasn't scared to gaze back into his eyes. The sweet, innocent smile she wore so often slowly broke through into her features._

"_Go." Shuu commanded, tossing the key to the door to her and looking away._

"_D-Doctor-"_

"_I said _go._" _

_So Muumo, with a baffled expression on her face, opened the door and walked out, very much alive._

_For a moment she stood there, in the hall, letting the fact that she had survive sink into her mind. Once that realization had hit her, the other revelations came rushing forward._

Doctor Iwamine killed Yuuya.

He let me go.

There was so much blood.

I was going to die.

He let me live.

I should probably report this to the police.

I owe him.

The rumors are true.

I kissed him.

_Just then, a voice rang down the hall._

"_Muumo?" Ryouta said, smiling through a grimace of pain, "I thought you were on –urgh!- infirmary duties today."_

"_Ryouta! Is your stomach upset?"_

"_O-Only a little. You look pale…is something wrong?"_

"_N-Nothing. The Doctor's busy right now…but if you want, we can go walk to the pharmacy. I'll buy you medicine, okay?"_

_Ryouta looked up at Muumo with an expression halfway between discomfort and surprise._

"_You don't have to do that."_

"_Sure I do. Let's go!"_

_So Muumo and Ryouta walked away from the infirmary, hand-in-hand. Muumo didn't know why she had done it; part of her wanted someone else to know what the Doctor had been doing. It would have been so easy, stepping aside and letting Ryouta go in. But he probably would have ended up dead, so for now, Muumo settled on that fact as her excuse. That and how she told herself that she owed him now. But she knew in her heart that neither of these reasons were truthful._

_Thus, the next year, on the first day of school, Muumo signed up for her club. She had known right away what she would do, and she had no regrets._

_And when she opened the door to the infirmary, and said her routine, "Good afternoon, Doctor Iwamine!" Shuu looked over, shocked to see her return._

_And Muumo smiled._


End file.
